


Debate, Desecrate, Diverge

by ibreathethroughwords



Series: Don’t [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Aliens, Aliens Made Them Do It, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack Treated Too Seriously, Desecration of a sacred space, Dirty Talk, Feelings, Fic doesn’t take itself seriously, Hate Sex, Liberties taken with Jedi Lore, Long-Distance Relationship, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e21-22 Zero Hour, Prompt Fill, Rimming, Space Drugs, Spider-Aliens, Symbolism, The Force Made Them Do It, space western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-01-15 13:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibreathethroughwords/pseuds/ibreathethroughwords
Summary: Thrawn and Kallus keep running into each other in entirely unexpected places.1: When they end up trapped together in a Jedi temple, old tensions rise, and Kallus and Thrawn fall back into a familiar habit.2: After being separated from their respective parties in a firefight in a dense jungle, the natives decide Kallus and Thrawn will do just fine for their purposes.3: A macabre scavanger hunt leads Kallus to a really morbid temple, sex, and another set of problems.





	1. Debate, Descrate, Divurge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they end up trapped together in a Jedi temple, old tensions rise, and Kallus and Thrawn fall back into a familiar habit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> redlipstickandhairbows on tumblr gave me “Iconoclast, Kallus” for a prompt. As with most things, it went a bit sideways.

The moistness of the algae growing over the temple’s floor filled the air with a dampness and odd taste that even Thrawn’s tongue sliding into his mouth couldn’t chase away. Kallus had tried getting rid of it by sucking him off – had told himself that was the reason he had greedily swallowed every dropped of cum that had flooded his mouth – but it hadn’t quite worked. Now the grand admiral, a former ally, his current enemy, was eagerly chasing the taste of it while his own hands opened Kallus’s trousers.

Kallus had heard enough Jedi lore from growing up during the Old Republic, then  
hearing it from Kanan and Ezra, to know that the Jedi Temple decided when you got to leave. Thrawn hadn’t believed him. The discussion on what to do to facilitate their escape had turned from a necessary and temporary truce into an argument. From there it had degraded further until Kallus had opted to just shut the Imperial Warlord up in the one way that had worked every time during their own private discussions.

It still worked.

Thrawn broke off the kiss and spun the human so he could press Kallus face-first into the cold stone wall. He hissed slightly as his skin make contact with it but quickly silenced himself when the grand admiral crouched behind him and efficiently stripped Kallus to his knees. Bracing himself against the wall, the human tried to relax for what he instinctively knew was coming.

Long and wet, Thrawn’s tongue licked over his entrance, pressing flat against it to tease. Unable to further resist making noise Kallus gasped, then pressed backwards with a low moan as the Chiss narrowed his tongue to a tip and circled the rim of the hole. Kallus swore at him and Thrawn chuckled.

“Mind your manners or I’ll take you dry,” he teased.

Both of them knew he wouldn’t – they had experimented once with different amounts of lube and less was not more – so Kallus swore at Thrawn again, and the Chiss spread his cheeks wider before pressing his tongue in to silence the traitor. Kallus whimpered and dropped a hand down to wrap around his cock. Thrawn grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm around behind his back.

“No, Alexsandr,” Thrawn calmly ordered.

‘’Fuck you,” Kallus spat back though he made no attempts to move his arm.

“Patience,” came the gentle scolding. “Have you no one to tend to your sexual needs within the rebellion? Perhaps you should consider coming back, my dear agent. Did we not always provide for all your needs?”

Kallus scowled at the stone. “I’m not coming back. I can take care of my own damn cock if I have to.”

“Pity. Perhaps you can yet be convinced,” Thrawn dove back into his task with relish, tongue-fucking him until he could add a finger and so on. 

Kallus was panting and on the verge of begging when Thrawn finally took him. In the moment Thrawn pushed into him the entire crew of the Ghost and all of Rebel Intelligence could have walked in and he wouldn’t have given a damn. All that mattered was having that perfectly shaped dick in him again. As much as he hated Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Empire he represented, Kallus couldn’t deny that the sex was phenomenal every single time.

This was no different, save that they’d fucked in many inappropriate places but had never desecrated a sacred building.

It was so taboo it turned him on more.

“Good?” Thrawn gasped.

Kallus nodded then added, “We’ve never desecrated a sacred space for sex, Thrawn.”

Thrawn moaned quietly against his neck and bit the same spot. “We haven’t, have we?”

“Kanan’s going to kill me – ow!”

Thrawn kissed the spot he had bitten and set a more relentless pace for fucking into the human. “I want you to paint the walls of this temple with your cum.” Kallus whimpered at the thought and felt Thrawn shiver. “Mine will hit the floor as it drips out of you. I don’t care what your Jedi friend thinks. Are you going to tell him that you let me have you against the wall of this temple? That you let an evil Imperial monster fuck you in a place he and your precious Alliance hold so dear?”

Kallus shook his head. No one would believe him.

A soft laugh bubbled air over his neck. “You won’t dare tell them that you let me defile you the same way we’re desecrating this sacred place, Alexsandr. It turns you on to know that you and I are the only ones who will know what happened here.” A cry fell from his lips and he tightened around Thrawn. There was no way he would tell Kanan or Ezra. No one needed to know.

 _Fuck_ , but Thrawn was right. He was achingly hard, and hadn’t wanted to cum so desperately in months. “I’m going to finish deep inside you just how you used to like before you betrayed everything you believed in.”

His thrusts were more rough now. Kallus was close. “Please touch me,” he begged, ignoring the wave of shame that wanted to well up at his request. “I need your hand on my cock.”

The lips on his neck had twisted into a smirk now as Thrawn’s thrusts became almost cruel in the amount of force put into them. Walking and sitting were going to be difficult for a couple of days. “Since you asked so politely, I don’t see why not,” Thrawn replied as he released one of Kallus’s hips to grip his cock. 

The long, thin fingers were skilled at working him. It had been months since they had last done this but Thrawn still had his body memorized. Kallus was pumping into his fist in mere minutes, shooting his load across the wall and floor as Thrawn grunted behind Kallus and finished deep within him. 

They cleaned up and redressed as best they could, and carefully didn’t look at each other when the door to the temple opened itself once they were fully clothed. If it was the will of the Force they have some kind of weird affair neither of them were going to mention it as they made their way out. 

* 

Kallus had let Thrawn use him as a “hostage” to get past Kanan and Ezra, and Thrawn had “allowed” him to escape once he had made it to his shuttle. Hera, Sabine, Ezra, and Rex had taken him at his word. Chopper and AP-5 had too, as far as Kallus could tell. That was good. The droids and Ezra were the most likely to be unreasonably nosy and stumble upon the sort of very uncomfortable truths one doesn’t explain to children because: 1.) they’re children, and 2.) it’s none of their business.

Kanan and Zeb weren’t buying his half-truths or accepting, “I don’t want to discuss what happened,” as a good enough answer. They waited until the rest were asleep and cornered him in the cockpit, in the pilot’s chair, so he couldn’t slip past them and out the door. Fortunately, he’d already managed to shower and properly clean himself up and out so there was no lingering smell for Zeb to detect in the enclosed space. 

Not that it meant Zeb hadn’t smelled it during Kallus’s “rescue” call. The anger on his face was only matched by the concern. Neither of them were particularly happy with him and Kallus couldn’t blame them for it. He had hardly conducted himself in a manner expected of a rebel officer. Shame filled him when he recalled the incident, along with guilt, but neither emotion stuck around for long. Grief for what he’d had replaced them, with arousal and need. Desire too, and a longing for what he no longer had.

One glance at Kanan’s face told Kallus the Jedi was picking up every emotion and Kallus sighed quietly.

“What happened in there, Kallus?” Zeb asked. At least his tone wasn’t yet accusatory. 

“We fought,” Kallus answered quietly. He couldn’t bring himself to quite look Zeb in the eyes. “We fought, we stuck together, we fought some more about why I left the Empire.” It was the truth: maybe not all of it, but the truth.

There was silence between the three of them: Kallus counted twenty-seven seconds of it before the lasat broke it again. “I could smell it on you when we picked you up, you know. Did he, y’know, are you–?”

Ah. That’s what he was angry about. Kallus looked up at Zeb, expression carefully blank. “No. He didn’t do that.”

Zeb’s expression went from angry and concerned to angry and offended. “I know what cum smells like, Kallus! Don’t you be defending someone who hurt you. No one is going to think any less of you for it.”

Oh, _stars_ , but Zeb could be dense sometimes. A glance at Kanan showed he’d be getting no support: the Jedi looked just as confused. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. A man has needs, Zeb! We used to settle arguments the same way when I was spying on the Empire. He and I fought in the temple and instinct took over. I kissed him, he kissed back, it got more heated, I sucked him off, and then I got the first proper fuck I’ve had in months!”

At least they looked scandalized instead of concerned for his mental well being. 

“You fucked Thrawn?” Kanan asked, tone quite polite despite the flabbergasted look on his face.

“Other way around.”

Zeb’s ears twitched.

Kallus sat quietly and gave them a minute to work through it. He was glad the others weren’t here. If Ezra knew he had sex, the boy might be traumatized for life. These two were adults – adult males – who had sexual needs of their own, and they looked like they might be traumatized for life.

“I’m an adult,” he reminded them. “Sex does happen.”

Zeb glanced at Kanan, searching for guidance on where to go from that. “Kallus, I hate to ask, but did you tell him–?”

No. No, he did not get to ask that question. Kallus shot Kanan a look so full of venom and disgust that he was sure the younger man felt it through the Force. He fell silent immediately. 

“What do you think?” he snapped. Kanan looked away.

“Of course I didn’t. Neither of us did. We’re both far too devoted to our causes to let any information slip. We fought over our reasons for picking our sides and when I got tired of the arguing I shut him up the same way we’d been shutting each other up for months before I decided I’d rather live as a rebel than be executed as a traitor and escaped.”

Zeb shifted uneasily in his seat. “You didn’t mention this in your, uh, in your debriefing.”

Kallus raised his eyes to meet the lasat’s and nearly flinched at the disappointment there. “Yes, I’m aware. How would I have brought that up, Zeb? ‘By the way, I was sharing a bed with the same person who used me to find your base and killed a great many of your friends?’”

“That’s a fair point,” Zeb agreed.

“You fucked Grand Admiral Thrawn. In a Jedi Temple,” Kanan muttered, shaking his head.

“I apologize for the location,” Kallus said sincerely. He had cum all over the wall. That didn’t seem fair. On the other hand, “But it wouldn’t let us out until after we had finished either, so do what you will with that information.”

Zeb made a face. “Maybe it was the will of the Force.”

“Oh fuck no,” Kanan replied, looking horrified despite the polite tone as he stood up to leave. “I’m going to bed and heard nothing of this conversation. Goodnight.”

Kallus watched him go with an amused smirk. So that was where Kanan drew the line. He’d have to remember that. Zeb was still there, boxing him into a corner of the cockpit. He turned to look at the lasat. 

“And you?”

“At least you got laid,” the lasat said with a shrug. “You definitely needed it. Are you two a thing or what?”

Were they a thing? Not anymore, he didn’t think. This encounter had been a spur of the moment thing and wouldn’t have happened without something running interference. Kallus would not return to the Empire and Thrawn would never defect. Whatever feelings they had for each other didn’t matter now: their relationship wasn’t sustainable from opposite sides of the war. Thrawn had captured him, made him watch the slaughter, and would have executed him next.

No. They weren’t a thing.

Kallus sighed quietly. “No, we’re not a thing,” he answered softly. “We can’t be a thing, Zeb, especially after Atollon. I think this was just a chance to have a bit of closure. One last goodbye.”

“Then it’s not a problem, and you’ve no need to feel guilty,” Zeb said, and rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment as he stood, then lumbered his way out of the cockpit.

He might have no need to feel guilty, Kallus understood as the door slid shut behind Zeb, but that didn’t stop him from feeling every inch a traitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been my warm up for a few days for a much longer Thrawllus fic I’ve been working on. That one is nearly 200 pages long and is nowhere near ready to be seen by the general public. It’s my baby.


	2. Dizzy, Dazed, Distracted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being separated from their respective parties during a firefight in a dense jungle, Thrawn and Kallus are kidnapped by the native who decide that they will suit their purposes just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was pissed off at a really crappy fic I saw and didn’t want it to be at the top of this ship tag. So I wrote this slightly less crappy chapter. It doesn’t take itself seriously in any way whatsoever. I didn’t even take this seriously: I hope it makes someone laugh.
> 
> For this one I wanted to try something a bit Star Trek TOS-like. Then I wanted to make my own horrible aliens.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Kallus grunted as he writhed on the straw-covered stone altar beneath Thrawn. It had only been a couple of weeks since their last meeting in that Jedi temple on whatever that planet had been, and he’d spent the entire two weeks trying not to dwell on that encounter.

Trying very hard.

Trying very hard as in, “he got hard when he tried,” because his mind – the traitorous thing that it was lately – went right to all the little details of that tryst. It was all too easy to remember what it was like to have Thrawn’s lips on his, the feeling of being penetrated by that long cock with nothing but saliva and precum as lubricant, the way it felt like his knees would give out as the cockhead dragged over his prostate for the first time in months–

Kallus had spent far too much his of time jacking off the last two weeks: not since he was a teenager had his own body been this out of control.

Now here he was, stuck on a backwater Outer Rim planet with Thrawn, having each been separated from their respective parties during a firefight and kidnapped by the indigenous people of this continent to be the stars of their fertility rite. The gray, fuzzy things walked on four, spider-like legs, and their thorax had two, fuzzy, gray arms on each side that ended in human-like hands with claws for nails. Aside from the faceted red eyes, the face looked unnervingly human, as though the entire race was the result of a terrible accident or a bad science experiment that should not have been funded.

Immediately upon arriving at what Thrawn had reluctantly agreed to call a village they’d been separated, bathed, oiled, and exposed to any number of potential toxins as a translator explained the rite. Before it began, only Kallus was given some vile-tasting beverage. Every attempt to spit the damn thing out had been caught, and his one success had resulting in them forcing him to drink it again. They’d covered his nose and mouth until he’d swallowed it.

Allegedly, it would ensure his ability to complete the rite. Personally, Kallus was sure that nothing was going to keep him hard or relaxed in a room full of spider-people. 

At least Kallus wasn’t trapped with Ezra or Sabine. Or Kanan and his pencil-dick. He chuckled.

Thrawn distracted him from his amusing thoughts with a particularly rough thrust that made him whimper in pleasure instead. “Would you please focus? You’re going to get us killed, Alexsandr,” he whispered.

Kallus arched his back, moving with Thrawn to meet his next thrust in a half-hearted attempt to help. “It’s difficult to focus with a roomful of spiders staring at us,” he retorted quietly. The dozens of fluffy, tarantula-like, sentient whatever-the-kriffs watching Thrawn fuck him were not making this easier. Kallus could barely maintain his own erection and his thoughts bouncing erratically were making it difficult to keep his attention on his ex-lover.

“You have to try. Focus on my voice. Focus on having my cock inside you again.” Thrawn doubled his efforts, his eyes watching the area around them for danger.

Indignant at the insinuation he wasn’t trying to get through this humiliating nightmare of a situation, Kallus scoffed. “I _am_ trying, you insufferable arse! Thinking of your cock only works when I’m in a situation where I want it.” The human huffed at him and shifted his position again. The room spun. “I think they drugged me,” he snapped as quietly as he could.

Thrawn paused within him for only a second, and lifted a hand under the pretense of brushing hair out of Kallus’s face. “You feel feverish,” he murmured, and resumed his thrusting.

Kallus nodded, closed his eyes against the sensation of vertigo, and shifted under Thrawn so that he would be rubbing over the human’s cock with every thrust. The rules of this stupid rite said neither of them could take him in hand: he had to come from Thrawn fucking him. As far as he was concerned, no hands didn’t mean no skin at all. He wrapped himself around Thrawn. 

“How long until the others find us?” he asked softly, desperately

“Your people should have found us by now,” Thrawn replied, moaning quietly as Kallus tightened around him slightly. “Focus on keeping an eye out for them if you can’t focus on the sex.

“You’re having a hard time staying hard.”

Thrawn nipped his shoulder and Kallus moaned. “So are you.”

There was a startling loud noise from the wall next to them and they froze: the chanting buzz of the arachnid people stopped immediately. Thrawn took advantage of the distraction and shifted so he withdrew from Kallus’s body, and the human frowned. “How do you feel, Alexsandr?” he asked quietly, as the other occupants’ attention shifted to the distraction.

“Dizzy. Dazed. Distracted.”

Another set of banging sounded further away from them and toward the entrance. Everyone else’s heads turned that way, but Thrawn was looking at the opposite window. “I need you to hold on to me very tightly. Can you do that?”

“Maybe.”

Kallus heard Thrawn swear in Cheunh as he shifted his grip on Kallus: he felt the man nod, and then somehow they ended up on the floor behind the altar. The clay wall of the hut exploded inward near where they had just been and the villagers let out a frightening, hissing scream as they fled the large hut that served as their altar. Thrawn kept Kallus’s head pushed to the floor, his body covering the human’s until he was sure it was safe, and then Kallus felt himself being pulled upright on the dirty floor, his back resting against the altar.

“You!” he heard Hera growl. It was followed shortly by the sound of a blaster pistol being drawn.

“He’s been drugged,” Thrawn calmly interjected. Kallus opened his eyes to look at his new surroundings: the grand admiral was crouched in front of him, still naked, and Hera was standing at his side with a blaster pointed at his head. Her grip was still incorrect but at this distance it didn’t matter: she would actually hit Thrawn. “We may have both been, but Alexsandr is the only one exhibiting symptoms and requires immediate medical attention. I don’t know what else they did to him when they separated us.”

Hera reluctantly holstered her blaster and crouched next to him. She swept his hair out of his eyes and put her wrist to his forehead to check his temperature. “Kallus, tell me what happened to you. We’ve been tracking you both for hours together Thrawn’s people. It was like you both vanished.”

Kallus reached for his hand and squeezed it when Thrawn took it. Remembering the sensation of the odd hand-claws on him practically required being comforted by a familiar touch. Reaching for Thrawn out of reflex made Hera tense up: Kallus lifted his other hand and patted her knee. It seemed like the nice thing to do. “As soon as they had us separated from you they tied us up with webbing. It had to be, given their nature. We were forced to walk here, but they let us walk together until we got here.

“They gave me a bath and oiled me like an athlete posing for a holo,” Kallus paused to breathe, and shuddered. Thrawn squeezed his hand and rested the other on his arm. He took another break and coughed. “Stole my uniform and equipment, told me what to do then shoved this nasty black stuff down my throat and forced me to swallow. It was like drinking the grounds from the lowest quality caf, but it tasted worse.”

Air was a little harder to get.

“He needs quality medical care or he’ll die,” Thrawn insisted softly. “His body temperature is rising and he is having a harder time breathing.”

“Clothes too,” Kallus added.

“We can take care of him on the _Ghost_. He’s not going back to the Empire, Thrawn.” Hera was probably narrowing her eyes at him in that scary way she had. It was really attractive. 

Blaster shots and the sounds of lightsabers were close. “Whatever you decide, do it quick,” Kallus heard Sabine say. Clothes were dropped nearby, and he heard the sound of a helmet being set aside. “Oh whoa, what happened to you two?”

“Don’t ask,” Kallus muttered.

“Do you need help?” she asked. When he nodded, Hera stood – she must have – and knocked the straw off the altar and on to the floor on the other side.

There were some words exchanged he couldn’t quite follow, and then he was moved. “Keep him awake,” Thrawn snapped, more than once, as he dressed himself and the ladies started putting Kallus’s shirt on him.

“Ugh! You’re so heavy!” Sabine complained. Kallus tried to tell her that was perfectly normal for a man of his height and muscle mass.

Had the words even come out? His tongue felt like lead. It was difficult to stay awake, to focus on the distressing physical sensations his body was experiencing, to remember this was a dangerous situation and he was not safe. Hera had managed to get his shirt over his head and was trying to maneuver his arms into the sleeves. Sabine was behind him keeping him upright. And Thrawn – 

“You can take his other arm,” Thrawn was saying. When had they gotten his shirt on him? Who had found his pants and boots, and why was the fever worse? _Stars_ , he was going to burn up and die before they ever made it to a ship with medical care.

“– ou’ll catch him?”

Kallus’s sense of awareness faded out again. There were points were it felt like he was moving against his will, and then sometimes he thought he heard blaster fire and swearing. Once, in what he knew was a really weird dream, Hera was arguing with Thrawn about where they should take Kallus to treat his case of priapism, dehydration, and the fever before they all worsened or lasted too long. He wished they knew about how he ached all over but couldn’t process it fully: it was as though his mind was numb to whatever his nerves were reporting. Unfortunately, Kallus didn’t have a way to tell them.

A bargain must have been struck because after a while Kallus realized he did feel better. Awareness of the fact was slow to return to him, but Kallus was eventually able to feel the warmth and texture of the blankets that covered him. The bed he was in felt firm against his back but not in unyielding, awful way his bunk on Base One felt. This one felt solid and supportive: he had to be under the care of medics.

But not necessarily Alliance medics: they couldn’t afford pillows that were this nice.

 _Oh kriff,_ he thought, and braced himself as he opened his eyes.

“Oh, _kriff_ ,” Kallus swore, with much more feeling, as he glanced around. His memory went hazy somewhere halfway through – 

The _fwoosh_ of doors opening drew his attention to the right. Kallus been doing his best to not think that he was probably aboard the _Chimaera_ : the sight of Thrawn put an end to that. Running into him somewhere Thrawn didn’t have absolute authority was one thing. Coming across him here, where Kallus had last been his former fuck buddy’s prisoner, forced to watch his allies die at this man’s hands, was terrifying.

It was a reminder that he betrayed not only the Alliance, but his own values and beliefs every time he let Grand Admiral Thrawn touch him.

But there was a difference – however slight – between Thrawn, the person, and Grand Admiral Thrawn, the warlord. Kallus should have been executed when Grand Admiral Thrawn first figured him out. Or on Lothal, over Atollan, in the Jedi temple, after they had escaped it, or during this latest adventure. He was, however, still alive, because of _Thrawn_. It wasn’t out of any misguided human-like emotion or attachment, he was sure, but Thrawn wanted him alive, and so he was.

Kallus didn’t have to enjoy it, nor was he obliged to cooperate.

“Why am I here?” he demanded, and crossed his arms over his chest.

It wasn’t until the doors had shut with a much more foreboding _fwoosh_ and Thrawn had used a code cylinder to lock it that Kallus received any sort of answer. “The _Ghost_ did not have the facilities to assist you in your time of need, and so you are all my prisoners.”

Prisoners. Of the Empire. His face paled as he sank further into the bed as though crushed by the implications of the calmly delivered statement. Because of his idiocy – because he had been separated from the group, been drugged, might have allowed his ex to fuck him in front of those arachnid things – they were all Imperial prisoners. They must be furious with him. Kanan and Zeb had been pretty annoyed last time, but this?

Kallus closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “Did we fuck in front of a room full of spiders?” he asked, latching on to the first memory that made no sense to him. “I barely remember what happened after we were ambushed.”

The face Thrawn made was enough of a yes that Kallus didn’t even want to hear the entire story of their adventure on the planet, but Thrawn made him sit through it regardless. By the end, the human was torn between laughter and nausea, barely able to believe what he was hearing despite still strongly feeling the aftereffects. Kallus shook his head in disbelief, and sighed softly at the Chiss seated next to his bed.

“All of that and we didn’t even get to finish?” he asked, and hid a grin at the sharp look Thrawn gave him.

“With your friends right there watching? No, Alexsandr, we did not ‘get to finish.’”

Kallus smirked at him just to see him scowl. “So if it’s strangers watching, it’s fine? You have some kind of a kink for spider-men? That’s going on the next publicity poster.”

Thrawn leaned in closer to him and took his hand. “I assure you, I do not have a kink for any sort of arachnids. The only reason I was able to achieve an erection at all was because of the sight of you spread out – naked and oiled – over the altar for me like some kind of sacrifice.”

“Oh, that’s kriffing gross!” said a voice from the ventilation shaft above them.

“Ezra, shut up!” exclaimed another one in a much more hushed voice.

Kallus threw his blankets over his face and let Thrawn deal with forcing the kids to return to their cells. It was going to be a long stay in medical, but at least it gave him plenty of time to plan their escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I said it wasn’t that serious. Like the previous chapter, I’ve been using this as my warm up for the longer, actually serious Thrawllus fic. That one has breached 160 pages. Sorry it was leaning seriously into the OOC territory: this was a purely for shits and giggles chapter and I make 0 apologies for my actions. Have at me.


	3. Disparage, Desire, Disconnect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Biting his bottom lip, Kallus looked away from the intense gaze on his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it — _them_ — he wanted Thrawn, and badly. But as a matter of practicality, he had to wonder if they could even make it work. It didn’t seem possible. “It isn’t that I don’t want what we have, but how is this going to work? An _‘us’_ isn’t sustainable. We’re on opposite sides of a war, Thrawn. We believe in completely different causes. You and I could very well have to kill each other.” Kallus pretended his voice didn’t catch, that he wasn’t scared of that possibility. 
> 
> Thrawn gripped his chin firmly and turned Kallus’s head back to look into his eyes. “I’m well aware of the potential outcomes. If we’re caught, we could both be executed. Exiled. Tortured by our own allies for daring to continue this idiotic affair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A particularly macabre scavanger hunt ends in an upsetting realization, and also sex. That I didn’t write. I’ll make it up to y’all.

“The _Chimaera_ is here.” Kanan’s voice was serious, annoyed already, and he and Zeb had Kallus blocked in the cargo hold. With a feeling like lead sinking in his stomach, down to the unspeakably similar sensation to poison unsettling him and spreading an odd pain through his body, Kallus looked up at them warily. His expression was intentionally guarded, especially since Sabine and Ezra were moving to position themselves protectively at his side. They had asked him to help straighten out the bay while en route to their destination, and he’d agreed to it. 

When Mon Mothma had ordered Kallus accept the crew of the _Ghost_ as his ride to a tiny planet named Qenarth for an Intelligence mission he had agreed because none of their intelligence showed any reason for them to expect Thrawn to show up. Kallus hadn’t thought he’d be cornered by his former enemies if his ex did happen to arrive there. He had been a Fulcrum agent for months, and at Base One for quite a while. Just because he’d nearly been killed by spider people who had forced him and his ex to have sex didn’t mean that he couldn’t be trusted to handle himself. So what if they’d had sex in his sickbay room during his recovery? Kallus was a consenting adult. 

He couldn’t get his ex-lover’s body out of his head, was all. 

“What’s it doing here?” Ezra demanded. 

“So far, just sitting in orbit,” Zeb answered, eyes on Kallus’s face.

Kallus stared back at him. He’d kept his nose as clean as possible: the war room was avoided at all costs unless he was ordered into it, he had sent no transmissions — Kallus refused to use his _comlink_ if he could avoid it — and he had done his best to go nowhere alone. If he had someone who could verify everything he had said and done, even if it was only AP-5, no one could successfully accuse of him spying for Thrawn. 

Or so he had hoped.

His chest was tight and achey: particularly around the collarbone. Accusing eyes were looking at him. Zeb was usually his friend. Zeb had saved him from another ten to twenty years of hurting the galaxy. Zeb had given him the courage to ask questions.

Zeb looked like he was going to space Kallus merely for existing in the same space-time as Thrawn. Kallus had to resist the urge to curl in on himself and make himself a smaller target. There had to be some way to get Zeb to stop noticing that he existed.

_You betrayed the Empire. He probably thinks you’ll betray them too. Once a traitor, always a traitor._

Hands, once relaxed, clenched into fists at his side. On his right, Sabine glanced down, then up at his face and tight jaw, and put a hand on his arm for a moment before stepping forward. “They probably got the same intel we did,” she said, her tone mostly reasonable. There was an edge to her voice there, though, lurking under the surface. It made Kanan’s back straighten and his lips turn down disapprovingly. Zeb raised his eyebrows at her, then at Ezra nodding in agreement. 

Kallus raised an eyebrow as he turned to look down at her. Privately, he hoped not. Captain Andor was one of their best Fulcrum agents as well as the source of this particular bit of intel: if he’d been compromised, the Rebellion could be well and truly fucked. They needed Cassian, needed well-trained operatives, needed people who could think like he thought and make the tough calls Fulcrum had to make in situations were it was impossible to call in for instructions. None of the agents knew everything about each other: no one agent knew all of the locations, aliases, broadcast frequencies, and secrets with which they’d been entrusted, but Kallus and Cassian knew the most. If the intel was compromised, a whole line of agents were likely dead. Andor might be dead. 

Kallus kept his face as neutral as possible. That would be Draven’s concern. 

“It could be a coincidence,” Ezra added from his other side. Kallus turned his head to look down at the boy. His right foot was planted sideways and he had stepped forward with his left as he spoke. The boy’s eyes were narrowed, and his fists were clenched like Kallus’s. It was a more aggressive defense of him than he expected to receive, but given the number of stories the child had been asking for from his time the Academy, or regarding weird stuff Kallus had seen during his years as an ISB agent, he supposed it wasn’t too odd a response.

He was grateful for it.

Kanan and Zeb exchanged a glance — something that never failed to throw Kallus off because Kanan couldn’t see — and reluctantly stood down. Kallus made a note to never underestimate the power of teenagers determined to stand up to the authority figure in their lives.

Zeb wasn’t entirely willing to let it go. “Yeah,” he half-agreed, “it _could_ be.”

“I didn’t call them!” Kallus finally snapped, meeting Zeb’s eyes with the fiercest glare he could muster. It must have been good: the Lasat took a full step back. “Or _him_. I’ve intentionally been nowhere near anything that can send a transmission unsupervised.” He stepped in front of the kids — Ezra in particular — instinctively putting himself between them and what he perceived to be a threat.

At the door, the other two backpedaled as Kallus took a couple steps closer. “I didn’t say—” Zeb tried, raising his hands, palms facing Kallus as though he could ward him off or surrender.

It didn’t stop him. “You didn’t have to,” Kallus hissed, voice lowering. “The implication was enough. Just like it was after we escaped the _Chimaera_ last time. You implied several things, Garazeb, none of which were very nice.”

“We heard his conversation with Thrawn. Several of them,” Sabine reminded him, “Kallus is a Rebel, Zeb. Kanan. Stop being asses.”

“This is a neutral planet, anyway,” Ezra said, jumping into the middle with a hand each on Zeb’s and Kallus’s chests. “We don’t even know if it’s inhabited. Relax. It’ll be fine.”

“Look. Just do the thing we’re dropping you off to do and come back. No sex. No talking to the enemy. None of that.” Kanan’s tone was firm.

Kallus snorted and rolled his eyes. “Sure. Everything will go exactly according to plan, just like it does every time.”

“That’s the spirit,” Kanan said, definitely rolling his in return behind the mask as he turned to leave.

*

Nothing went according to plan, but at least he didn’t have an audience. The agent High Command had wanted him to bring into the Intelligence network was dead upon his arrival to the meeting place. It took a few hours, but he had managed to track the agent’s contacts and clean up the mess.

Most of it. The last of the trail lead him to an abandoned temple some ways into the mountains. Well aware this could be a trap, Kallus kept his blaster drawn as he moved through the building, silent and alert for signs of life. Every breath was even and quiet — as silent as his footsteps — thanks to the training the Empire had so graciously provided him. 

That same training Kallus was delighted to use against it.

It was a small temple, and it was forcing him toward a point where there would be no cover. Should the Empire actually have any forces coming up from either direction, Kallus was going to get shot.

Thankfully, he made it down the hall in one piece, free of new holes. The corridor opened to an inner sanctum with large stained glass windows depicting scenes of humanoids engaged in various acts of depravity. Murder, cannibalism, sex, suicide, and other scenes played out across the colorful glass. Standing in the middle of the room, in front of the altar, was Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

The light from the windows cast different colors across the white fabric of his duty uniform, covering him in the echoes of the macabre scenes. It was beautiful, in a way, and irritatingly poetic. Kallus looked around the room and determined Thrawn had come alone before holstering his blaster.

“A scavenger hunt based around a dead man would be your idea of a date,” he greeted, coming to stand next to Thrawn. It was wrong of him to want to see him, especially after the warning from Kanan and Zeb. Being pleased to see him was doubly wrong, but Kallus couldn’t help it. He wanted — he ached — for the other man. Right or wrong.

“Though this one was, perhaps a bit on the morbid side.” Thrawn turned to face him. “Hello, Alexsandr.”

A faint smile was on the Chiss’s face, one Kallus’s couldn’t quite resist returning, especially after his hands were grabbed. “Hello, Thrawn.”

“I told you I would make time, did I not?”

“The agreement was that this doesn’t interfere with work,” Kallus scolded him, even as he let himself be pulled in closer for an embrace and kiss.

Thrawn hmmm’d into the kiss. 

When they broke apart, Kallus gave him an accusing look. “You promised, Thrawn.” He still let himself be pulled closer, let Thrawn wrap his arms around his waist and drop sweet kisses over his face. 

“I did,” he acknowledged, and purred when Kallus wound his arms around his shoulders in turn. A sharp hiss escaped him when his earlobe was bitten. “This was unavoidable, I’m afraid. Orders.”

“What’s this then?”

“Making the best of the situation.” A hand tangled in his hair. Thrawn used it to pull his head back slightly. Kallus didn’t fight him: it was only a cue to look at him, not a control tactic. His face was serious. “I find myself desperately needing to speak with you: I can’t let you go.” 

At Kallus’s look of alarm Thrawn shook his head and hastily rephrased the statement. “I’m not here to imprison you. What I mean is that I can’t let _this_ go.” Kallus narrowed his eyes at Thrawn, and watched him fumble for the right phrasing in Basic. It was rare the man had difficulty any more, but he was clearly flustered and floundering. “I can’t let — what is it the word for _von’ehn_?”

Knowing it wouldn’t help at all he ran his fingers through Thrawn’s hair, intentionally being distracting. “ _Vun’bicn,_ Alexsandr, quit.”

“Breathe,” Kallus told him, pressing closer and stealing a kiss. 

“Us,” Thrawn said the moment Kallus pulled away with reddened lips and eyes slightly glazed over from the passion with which his lover had returned the kiss. “I cannot let us go.”

Biting his bottom lip, Kallus looked away from the intense gaze on his face. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it — _them_ — he wanted Thrawn, and badly. But as a matter of practicality, he had to wonder if they could even make it work. It didn’t seem possible. “It isn’t that I don’t want what we have, but how is this going to work? An _‘us’_ isn’t sustainable. We’re on opposite sides of a war, Thrawn. We believe in completely different causes. You and I could very well have to kill each other.” Kallus pretended his voice didn’t catch, that he wasn’t scared of that possibility. 

Thrawn gripped his chin firmly and turned Kallus’s head back to look into his eyes. “I’m well aware of the potential outcomes. If we’re caught, we could both be executed. Exiled. Tortured by our own allies for daring to continue this idiotic affair.”

Kallus held his gaze for a moment before pulling away and pacing toward one of the windows slightly. “It kills me, when I think about you. When I’m with my allies, or alone at our base, and I think about where you are and what danger you might be in. Or who you might be with. That you might move on while I’m still in—” That had been a close one. Kallus took a deep breath, “—while I still care about you and pining however many lightyears away because I just had to start asking questions. Then my hatred for you rears up, and I’m disgusted with myself again.”

His back was to Thrawn, arms wrapped around himself. There was silence, and then Thrawn’s quiet footfalls in the dust as he rested his hands on his lover’s hips and drew Kallus back against his chest. 

“You’ve never told me exactly what happened.”

“I don’t want you assassinating my reason.”

Thrawn snorted, and kissed his neck. “Please. Give me some credit. I would at least question them first.”

Kallus unfolded his arms and reached down to take Thrawn’s hands. He wanted the arms around him, and put them there. “They challenged me to ask questions about some unsettling things,” he explained hesitantly. “I didn’t like the answers I found, and reconciling that with the day-to-day operations of the Empire and my own actions pushed me to leave.”

“You could have come to me, Alexsandr,” he murmured, kissing over his ear. “Before you left.”

“And said what, Thrawn? ‘I’ve been betraying the Empire this whole time, look at all this horrible stuff I found out about?’”

Silence from Thrawn must have meant he scored a point. Kallus twisted in his arms to see him. “I couldn’t go to anyone on either side. Part of being Fulcrum, my contact explained to me, is keeping as many alive as possible _on both sides_. That means keeping as many people in the dark as possible as to my identity, Thrawn. There was no way I could have gone to you. I only revealed myself once, and the idiots I had to reveal myself to told enough people afterward to put me in danger.”

A frown made Thrawn’s face no less handsome as he studied Kallus. “Was it before you framed Lyste?”

“You’re the genius who figured me out. You tell me.” Kallus raised an eyebrow at him, challenging Thrawn. He’d been so certain that day the man knew. The sex that night had been brutally rough despite his concussion: Thrawn had not been gentle, and left so many bite marks that Kallus had skipped the gym for a week and a half instead of wasting bacta on them. Sex that night had felt like punishment. 

He watched Thrawn’s face as he worked it out, thinking through the problem to a solution. A hundred little micro-expressions crossed his face as he thought through the possibilities and discarded some but not others. The irritation on his face when he figured it out made Kallus chuckle. “It was you that helped the Jedi escape the factory.”

“And they gave me a concussion for my efforts,” Kallus reminded him. “They’d already stolen your plans, so don’t get huffy with me for that.”

“You’re a pain,” Thrawn informed him, and kissed him anyway. It was a sweet kiss, achingly tender despite the topic of conversation. 

Kallus’s toes curled in his boots. “How am I a pain?”

“Your friends endanger you, but you fight for them anyway. Do you know how much I worry?” Thrawn pressed their foreheads together and brushed a strand of hair out of his face. “Come home, Alexsandr.”

“You know I can’t go back, Thrawn. Leave with me. Give the Alliance a fighting chance. You could turn the war in our favor in no time, help us make a republic that isn’t so damn weak. I’m not a huge fan of democracy either, but I can’t abide the Empire’s methods.” Kallus stole another kiss, hoping to convince him.

“Alexsa—”

“Thrawn.” Kallus stared him down, gave him a pleading look. “The Empire’s methods no longer match up to its ideology. I’m not sure it ever did. At least consider that point while we’re apart.”

Thrawn looked at him for a long moment mostly studying his face. “It means a lot to you that I do this.”

Kallus sighed quietly. “Yes. _Please._ ”

“Very well. I will consider it.” Something eased in Kallus’s chest, and he relaxed at the acquiescence. 

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, and leaned in to peck Thrawn’s cheek. 

Thrawn turned his head to catch Kallus’s lips and deepen the kiss. “Don’t thank me yet. Remember, Alexsandr, we could still very well die over this.”

There was silence for a moment, as they looked at each other. Thrawn had to hate this. Must hate this. He wasn’t in control of the situation so long as his heart and cock were driving him to bed Kallus despite the threat. The thought made Kallus’s chest ache. This was wrong, and they both knew it. Both should be heading back to their ships but they were here, stealing a moment alone while they could, each quietly desperate and needy for the other. 

“Nevertheless?” Kallus finally prompted.

The corner of Thrawn’s lip twitched up in a smile. “Nevertheless, Alexsandr, here we are. Let us make the most of the moment.”

Kallus couldn’t find it in himself to argue with that. Smiling slightly, he let Thrawn pull him into another kiss, and show him what he had in mind.

*

They left the temple in opposite directions and each with a bounce in their step — Kallus back the way he had come, Thrawn down a different trail — after a parting kiss that felt like Thrawn had tried to brand himself into Kallus’s soul. Kallus got halfway down the trail before he noticed someone above, following him through the trees. A blaster would give away his position to any lingering Imperial Intelligence agents, but the vibroblades tucked into his jacket sleeves wouldn’t.

He heard his tail jump out of the trees and rush at him, dropped the sharp blades into his hands and caught the hilts, and brought his arms up to defend himself as he turned to face his opponent. Kallus found himself pinned bodily against a large tree. Zeb found Kallus’s forearms crossed in front of him and two extremely sharp blades at his throat, ready to slice it open if he made the wrong move.

After a moment of heavy breathing and neither of them moving, they gathered themselves. “Do you always sneak up on your allies in the woods to ambush them, or am I special?” Kallus snapped at him, not lowering the blades. If Zeb had been spying on him and was about to execute him, he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Nothing of value had been given to Thrawn, save for his time.

“You slept with him again,” Zeb accused, ignored the very real threat in front of his throat. It was insulting.

Kallus ducked under his arms and stepped away to flip the knives around and put them back. Zeb looked offended that Kallus would disregard him like that, but Kallus didn’t care. He sank to the ground in front of the tree and leaned back against it. “No. We had a long conversation about why I joined the rebellion, and then we had a quickie.” Why bother denying it to someone with a nose like that?

“Or rather, I let him fuck me again. I’d let him do it over, and over, and over again, and I don’t know why, Zeb. I really don’t.” Kallus looked at his friend’s feet, his chest tight with guilt and shame as he spoke. The Lasat’s face felt like something off-limits right now: he knew what he’d see there. Anger. Disappointment. Threats unspoken.

_Betrayal._

_‘I betrayed the Empire. They know what I’m capable of: it makes sense for them to doubt me.’_

Zeb grunted — disapproval, Kallus thought — at him. “Why are you doing this?” 

Why? Because Thrawn had been a damn good lay and conversationalist at first. Why still? He supposed it was the same reasons. Zeb didn’t need to hear them. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything beyond a release of tension, at first,” Kallus answered after a moment or two of thought. “I was using him for information: I was already a Fulcrum agent when the affair started. We should never have become as close as we did, especially after he knew I was a traitor.”

But they had. Thrawn had kept him closer still. He had started staying the night or keeping Kallus all night. Had begun holding him closer, kissing him longer, as though he could kiss away the faults of the Empire by making love to him and then getting Kallus to fall—

_‘No. No, no, no. I can’t be. It can’t be that.’_

Zeb sank down next to him and put an arm around Kallus’s shoulders, pulling him close. “You didn’t even cry after we rescued you, but you look a right mess now.”

Even as he lifted a hand up to his cheek, Kallus argued. “I’m not crying, I—” Maybe he was. His face was wet. “I haven’t cried save for being tortured a time or two since Onderan.” His voice was weak as he finished, dazed, the shock of such a thing as tears on his face throwing him off balance. And to be crying over Thrawn, of all things. Of all people.

To have such a realization about his own feelings toward Thrawn.

A shuddering sob escaped his control, and Zeb’s grip tightened. Kallus tried to keep talking “We both know it has to stop. And yet—”

“And yet every chance you get the two of you are sneaking off to fuck like teenagers behind the backs of your allies.” The tone was still accusatory, and far more threatening. Kallus tried to pull away from Zeb, but the Lasat held him fast to his side as he growled out his argument. “Do you think no one in the Rebellion can handle your needs, Alex? Have you even attempted to move on?”

“Of course I have!” Kallus snapped, finally looking up at him. The anger burning in his eyes at the accusation was far more fierce than Zeb’s, and the Lasat looked away first. “I’ve tried taking other lovers, I’ve tried taking no lovers. I’ve attempted dealing with it on my own, since I’ve no family and I can’t rely on _friends_ to be understanding and supportive! Unlike you, I don’t have the benefit of a support network for my own issues. _All I have is me_ when it comes to this! I can’t go to medical for a counselor because if it gets back to Draven or other members of Rebel Intelligence I’ll be in binders and either executed or—”

It took effort, but he stopped himself from talking. Zeb wasn’t authorized to know where the top secret facility was they were using for political prisoners. Kallus took a deep breath and lowered his voice, forcing himself to sound calm instead of hysterical and angry. “I’ll be sent away. Far away.” It would a life sentence, and as they don’t have the rations to feed all of the prisoners every day, it likely wouldn’t be a very long life.

Zeb frowned at him, but didn’t quite argue back. “You can’t expect us to support you being with him. Not after what he did to us.”

“I’m aware of that, and I know better than to ask it of any of you,” Kallus returned. “I can’t get myself sorted out and separated from him. I’ve been able to separate myself from everything in my former life except for him, and every time the _Chimaera_ turns up somewhere I get accusing looks or a confrontation. Thrawn has been more of a welcoming solace than the people who saved me from another twenty years of making mistakes on behalf of the Empire.”

“How did he know to turn up here?”

Kallus sighed. “Sabine was right: same or similar intelligence. Then he realized I was here, and set up a slightly morbid scavenger hunt to lure me off for a rendezvous. It wasn’t until after I cleared the temple and made my way to the inner sanctum that I found him — alone — and we talked for a while about, about _us_ , before we got farther than that.”

“Alex,” Zeb’s eyes narrowed as he spoke the name in a warning tone.

“Zeb,” he responded in the same tone.

“You could get us all killed having casual conversation with him!”

Kallus snorted. “So could you, if you wanted. Anyone of us could easily get the rest killed. We’re all banking on trust.”

Grumbling, Zeb shut up. “I’m not giving Thrawn any of our secrets. He doesn’t give me any of theirs. You don’t need to know the rest of the details because I’m not telling you a damn thing about my sex life: especially when you’ve implied I’m a traitor multiple times in one day.

“Now: can we please go back to the ship?”

Silence stretched on between them for a moment despite the irritatingly cheerful chirping of the birds and other forest wildlife around them. Kallus had never wanted to devastate a forest from space before, didn’t know where others had ever gotten the urge. Maybe everyone in the Empire were having moments like this with other people, and that was why Things Happened that had driven Kallus from their ranks. He glared at a yellow bird over Zeb’s shoulder that was a little too shrill and a little too yellow. Too happy. 

He turned his gaze back to Zeb. The Lasat got to his feet with a sigh and an eye roll and pulled Kallus with him. “Fine,” he agreed as they started to walk, “but look, you’re not going anywhere alone for a while. I don’t care if we have to lie about it, but what if he does decide to just take you back with him one day?”

“I do worry about that,” Kallus quietly admitted. Honesty would get him farther with Zeb than anything else would. “I worry about it every time, because if he does, I would try to escape. If it’s discovered that he had only me and I left — if the affair is ever made public — he’ll be executed, and it’ll be used as an excuse to make things worse for non-Humans. If he ever kidnaps me, I have to go back to helping you undercover. Permanently. My help would have to be so rare, so secretive, that you wouldn’t know it was me.”

Zeb was quiet for several minutes as they walked, a steadying arm around Kallus’s shoulders. “You’ve got it bad for him, Alex.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “I do. I have for— well, months. Nearly a year. Thrawn’s hurt all of us so badly, and I know that.” Kallus tilted his head up to look at Zeb. “I guess that makes me a special sort of idiot.”

“Yeah, but you’re our idiot,” Zeb confirmed, tightening his grip for a moment before it relaxed as he continued with a sigh, “‘sides, it’s not like you didn’t hurt him too. You got Kanan and Ezra out with the plans to the fighter, you betrayed the Empire, escaped from Pryce, and you’re fighting against him. No one’s innocent in a relationship or a war.”

Kallus laughed softly as they entered the small clearing in which Zeb had left the _Phantom II_. “Been watching romance movies with Sabine and Hera?”

“Shut up and get on the ship,” Zeb grumbled as he ruffled Kallus’s hair. “You need to get back to the _Ghost_ and take a damn shower. I can smell him all over you.”

“Complain, complain,” Kallus muttered fondly as they boarded, but at least he felt like he could smile. There was somewhat of an understanding, and that would serve him better in the long run, he hoped, while he tried to work this out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a progression here I want to point out:  
> Crack treated serious to crack treated more seriously than it should be
> 
> Wait until you see the next chapter I’ve already written but am editing alongside the chapter after that. Eventually I’ll go back to crack. There’s a fantastically fucked up thing I want to do with space witches. No: not Dathomir.


End file.
